Not the Lord (John) Brabourne that we remember, leasing his Mersham-le-Hatch to Caldecott Community in 1947, chair of Caldecott Trustees until October 1992, dying age 80 in 2005. I refer to his older brother Norton Cecil Michael Knatchbull, born in February 1922 who became 6th Baron Brabourne (just after his 17th birthday) in February 1939 upon the death of his father.
Norton was a Lieutenant in the Grenadier Guards, fighting in the Second World War. He was wounded and captured by the Germans in Tunisia in 1943, before going into a POW camp in Italy. He was then being transferred in mid-September 1943 by train from Italy to Germany. Near Bronzolo, N Italy, Lord Brabourne (age 21) and Lt Arnold Guy Vivian (nephew of composer Roger Quilter), briefly escaped from the train but soon they were recaptured by the Germans.
Both officers were brought back to the railway, made to kneel on the tracks and were shot. Their bodies were initially left by the railway as a warning to others, but were buried at the local cemetery by Italians in the night of 15 September (remains later were moved in 1945 to Padua). The deaths were not known of in England until 1945 after the war in Europe had ended.
The German officer (perhaps SS) who had ordered these executions was later traced, convicted of a war crime and then hanged.